


Red Eyes in the Dark

by thatdamnuchiha



Series: In the Company of Elves [16]
Category: Naruto, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And Subsequently Curses the Universe, Angst, BAMF Original Female Character(s), Blindness, Crossover, Culture Shock, Death is Traumatising, Eriador, F/M, Fornost, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, In Which the OFC Eventually Realises She's Been Reborn in a Crossover, Mangekyou Sharingan, Original Female Character-centric - Freeform, POV Original Female Character, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Reincarnation, Rivendell | Imladris, Rules of Chakra Manipulation, Sharingan, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Slow To Update, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Swearing, The OFC Has Issues, Trauma, Uchiha Massacre, War, Work In Progress, arda, because let's face it chakra is a HAX power in the LOTR world, because... soulmates, sensor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:07:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27093298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatdamnuchiha/pseuds/thatdamnuchiha
Summary: His soulmark was beautiful – a circle made of what looked like cut crystal for the way it seemed to radiate numerous different colours, the predominant one being red. It was marred only by the odd pitch black design which sometimes seemed to spin if the light caught it just right. Glorfindel could only wonder as to who would be in possession of such a jewel and when they might cross paths.Uchiha Reiko was not amused by her death and subsequent rebirth – not the least because she was reborn into a mad, mad world of soulmates and destined partners. Added to the fact that her soulmate would have to pass the stringent requirements the Uchiha Clan demand of any ‘potential’ soulmates, it’s safe to say she was rather troubled by the idea of the red string of fate.Of course, nothing ever goes to plan, nor is destiny ever so kind to her, because Uchiha-bloody-Itachi has to go and ruin her plans by killing her.Again.She wakes up once more in a land where no one speaks her language, but the scars remain – including the thin line slicing through her eyes, stealing her vision from her.She wakes up in darkness, upon the shores of unfamiliar lands, alone, terrified, and utterly blind.
Relationships: Glorfindel (Tolkien)/Original Female Character(s), Other Relationship Tags to Be Added
Series: In the Company of Elves [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1430875
Comments: 39
Kudos: 297





	1. The Short Second Life of Uchiha Reiko

**Author's Note:**

> Hop, hop goes the plot bunny, and this is the result.
> 
> Here's a bit of a weird crossover that actually doesn't involve Sakura, yet involves my favourite elf when in comes to LOTR pairings. Though I'll be honest and say that I always tend to end up focusing more on the whole setting and character past rather than the romance - because I mark most of these as 'Slow Build' and 'Slow Burn'. And this time I'm actually trying to accomplish that, since sometimes I feel the romance ends up happening over a matter of chapters and that just won't do because I want to actually write a proper slow burn with many, many chapters of delightful slow burn.
> 
> On another note, I think it's time I went and got some sleep yet again.
> 
> Happy Reading Folks.

Death was a natural part of life. Frankly, it was a rather unavoidable prospect, as one Uchiha Reiko knew from a far too personal experience with the cold spectre which was death. Never had she told anyone of this fact, nor did she ever want to. She lived in a village of shinobi, and they tended to be the sort of folk who would _stab_ first and not bother asking questions to a cold, lifeless corpse of their own making – a waste of breath, that would be. There was no logic in asking a dead person questions like that, unless there was a reanimation jutsu involved, and shinobi were quite logical more often than not.

Of course, that point of view was entirely biased because those shinobi had grown up achieving mind bending stunts which would have been called _supernatural_ in Reiko’s last life. Had Reiko had any option of not being a shinobi, then she would have thrown herself down that alleyway without even considering the many joys that being a shinobi brought – there was the PTSD, the whole _murder_ and other fun pastimes, the corpses, the indoctrination, the possibility of torture, oh, and of course there was the free dental. The latter being what Reiko probably liked the most, though given the fact it was the shinobi life which racked up the most injuries and missing teeth…

The point was Uchiha Reiko _had_ to be a shinobi, and it was because of her name and the parents who had begotten her. Once upon a time she had been a sweet girl with a different name, one who wrote fanfiction and loved Naruto and other niche entertainment. She _liked_ Uchiha. They were devastatingly fun to write about, what with the love, the craziness, and the general madness of the lot of them. Truly, they were the wet dream of angst-ridden writers, given what one could do with an imagination and the Uchiha Clan. Reiko had liked that, and she had very much taken liberties when writing weird, obscure fanfictions. But that had been from the other side of the screen.

Writing about the Uchiha Clan was one thing, but becoming a part of it – becoming a part of the clan due to be massacred by ‘the tragic hero’ Uchiha Itachi? That was a no thank you, kindly shut the door and move onwards good sir. Reiko would have loved to be anything other than an Uchiha. Senju, a wonderful option. Uzumaki, a bit iffy but she would take that over the Uchiha name any day. Random civilian last name, yes please. The fact of the matter was that Uchiha Reiko despised being an Uchiha, even with the sparkly red eyes and boosted chakra levels she earned as a result of that wonderous last name.

Truly, she hadn’t really considered trying to _change the plot_ all that much as original characters were wont to do. She just wanted to live quietly and get to her appointment in the pure lands on time, and not a second before – no involvement in the so-called plot of the world necessary. Reiko could have happily left the plot characters to their own devices and let madness ensue. Only she was an _Uchiha._ As in part of the clan who would get slaughtered wholesale because some morons thought they could take over the rest of Konoha. One clan against the twenty others or so, who would _apparently_ happily let such a rebellion take place.

Life hated her though, and so she had come into the world as Uchiha Reiko, daughter of two fine shinobi who had no other craft to bestow upon their daughter other than one of bloodstained hands and murder. Uchiha Raiden, her delightful father, was the brother of Uchiha Mikoto, meaning she was right in the spotlight which the Clan Elders happily shone down upon them all. There was nowhere for her to hide, and rebellion was not tolerated within the Uchiha Clan. _Rebellion against the village was another matter entirely though._ She would be slaughtered even if she disagreed with the sentiments.

Though there was something rather interesting about that world which she came into as one Uchiha Reiko. Something which threw her through the loop and set her curiosity afire. Because in that strange, terrifying, and frankly alien world, there existed the phenomenon known as soulmates. The universe decreed that nothing for her could ever be simple though, so instead of the well-known name of their fated other half or the first words spoken to each other which magically changed colour – _she lived in a world of chakra, it was basically magic_ – there was only a symbol.

To make matters infinitely worse, the Uchiha Clan were very picky about who married in, and Reiko had grown up hearing tales of soulmates being separated because they weren’t worthy of the Uchiha name. The same sex pairings were the ones which caused the most heartbreak. But the word of the Clan Elders in the compound was law, and the Uchiha blood had to run thick and strong through the generations. Personally, Reiko thought they were meddling bastards, but then again she came from a world where freedom of speech and choice along with the all important gay rights were very much promoted. Konoha would probably break, and subsequently try to murder her though, should she attempt to push forth those views, so Reiko wisely remained quiet but no less outraged.

She, herself, was quite happily heterosexual, so no need to worry about being split from her apparent destined partner for those reasons, but the universe did enjoy throwing curveballs at her. Reiko couldn’t bat for the life of her, though she liked to think she was managing admirably in the strange, terrifying world she had been booted into without so much as a _by your leave._

Truth be told, Reiko thought the Uchiha Clan were idiots – and she was now one of them, but at least she owned up to her idiocy and she thought that made her marginally better – because whatever higher power decided on soulmates obviously had some sort of reasoning behind it. Case in point, any soulmate relationship in other clans who weren’t as stringent as the main clans of Konoha. But some people hated being told what to do, and Reiko could happily relate to that statement with a pointed glare to any obnoxious Uchiha nearby. She was becoming terribly good at identifying them on sight.

The fact of the matter was that fate, or the universe – however she wanted to describe it – ensured that soulmates had to eventually meet by way of keeping soulmates alive and beautifully young until they met their destined other half. _Reiko didn’t quite understand how that worked, but chakra was quickly becoming the definition behind all things strange and implausible._ Then it was simply a matter of touching each other’s soulmarks, binding their lives together until death do they part. The only way soulmates weren’t to meet was if they died, and if one died, so did the other. Reiko had been terribly disturbed by that fact, what with the fact that if her soulmate was an idiot and got himself killed, then she would similarly pop her clogs. So Uchiha Reiko didn’t understand why they split soulmates up, especially after they touched soulmarks. It was practically cruel to do just that, and she prayed fervently that it wouldn’t happen to her – and that she would also be able to escape her clan as soon as possible. Ideally before Itachi slaughtered them wholesale would be preferable.

But, once again, the universe despised her, and her delightful cousin was born a scant three years after her. Meaning, that should she have her dates correct, given the messy timeline which was _Naruto,_ she would be sixteen years old when the slaughter of the Uchiha occurred. Too young to be able to escape the gimlet gazes of the Clan Elders who cracked the whip the hardest for those teenage years and just a little beyond.

More than once she had debated on killing her cousin, and while it sounded terrible to outside ears, Reiko was very much interested in continuing breathing, and killing Itachi while she outclassed him in skill by a scant margin… It was a _tempting_ offer, which only further proved how much the shinobi lifestyle and Konoha’s indoctrination to killing _for the good of the village_ had affected her. Perhaps, had her morals from her last life, and the innocence she could see in those dark eyes whenever she had _played_ with her future murderer not affected her as much as they had… then maybe… just maybe she would have committed a terrible sin and probably consigned herself to some sort of hell. _Or, more likely, been murdered shortly after the deed for killing the Clan Heir before he could decide to kill an entire clan to spare his brother._

Uchiha Sasuke. Reiko hated what the future had in store for the so-called avenger just as much as she hated the thought of what he would turn out to be. It made her emit killing intent whenever she thought on that future, and she had little doubts the future would flow towards that course. People sometimes liked to picture a water droplet impacting a still lake, creating ripples which would spread outwards and _change_ everything. But Reiko had swiftly learned that it was no lake of untold possibilities she had been dropped into. Rather, she had been dropped into a motherfucking sea, and the tides were constant and unchanging.

The Uchiha Clan was ticking towards their downfall, and every year spent trying to do anything to avert such a thing was a year wasted. So she planned to slip away – she planned to try and disappear and move out of the compound. _And ignore any sort of summons into the compound on her sixteenth year—_

But then she’d probably just get murdered by ROOT and have her eyes ripped from her skull. Because her eyes weren’t any ordinary eyes. _Oh no._ It was yet another reason she would never be able to vanish, no matter how she longed and plotted to. She didn’t have any old sharingan. She didn’t even have Mangekyou Sharingan. Instead she had the wonderful Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan. The same eyes Madara had. The same eyes Itachi would enable his _oh so precious_ Sasuke to have. Her lip curled whenever she thought of those two brothers. Once, long, long ago, in the sweet summer of her youth, she had thought Itachi was oh so incredible.

Growing up, and then subsequently incarnating into the body of one of his would be victims had shifted her world view entirely. There were children other than Sasuke in the compound. There were civilian members of the clan. There were others who didn’t support the whole _hey-let’s-take-over-Konoha-hahaha_ plan. And then there was _sweet little_ Uchiha Itachi who thought it was a good idea to _not_ question orders or at least spare the innocents, and simply murder them all, including little babies in their cribs. There were at least two pregnancies a year, oftentimes more. Reiko didn’t see that magically changing in the next couple of years. _Yes, Itachi was young, raised in a village and a clan which promoted murder and the like, but he was supposed to be a genius and he was supposed to have pacifistic ideals… so why couldn’t he spare a thought, think of a plan, for the innocents who truly didn’t deserve to die?_

Reiko hated it. She hated everything about being born an Uchiha, but that was her lot in life, and she had to try and make the best of it. She was the holder of the Eternal Mangekyou, and the clan loved to put pressure on her. Which probably explained her _questionable_ state of mind. A state which only became more panicked as her sixteenth year dawned upon her.

She was a medic – having fought tooth and nail in regards to _investigating their clan’s deteriorating vision as only an Uchiha rightly could_ and finally being granted permission to join the ranks of medics. She had tried to prove to her, Itachi, and the rest of the world – _AKA Danzo_ – that she wanted nothing to do with taking over Konoha, and that there were Uchiha who weren’t all crazy out there, and maybe, just maybe, she was important enough to keep around.

Her last minute, improvised plan failed. _Obviously._ She had flitted from plan to plan, never able to settle upon one, but she didn’t really think it had mattered in the end. The universe hated her, and Reiko couldn’t help but wonder if her fate had been irrevocably set in stone since her first breath in that world. Death came for her, and she was learning it always came sooner than she thought it ought to. She could only apologise to the owner of that sun-like golden soulmark on her arm as the slaughter started on that fateful night.

It was a cloudy night when he came, and being a half-decent hand at sensory techniques, thanks to her decent enough chakra control which allowed her to pursue the medical career in the first place at fourteen years of age, informed her that there were indeed blank-masked figures holding a perimeter of sorts around the Uchiha Compound. They were boxed in, like lambs waiting for slaughter.

She lived on her own by that point, far from where the systematic slaughter began, but she didn’t simply wait for murder to come to her door. Rather she gathered her blade and readied herself, because she would be damned if she just offered up her neck to her bloody cousin. She couldn’t compare skill wise to her little cousin, but she had the strongest eyes, and she was determined to make him bleed. _To give him a little mark with which to remember the fact that he had slaughtered her._

Because her mother had, two months ago, given birth to a little baby girl. The same mother who lived closer to where the slaughter had begun. The same slaughter she couldn’t stop. Which meant by the time Uchiha Itachi arrived to slay her he had killed the little baby who had so recently smiled up at Uchiha Reiko. He had ended a little life before it had even had a chance to begin. He had ended a little life that Uchiha Reiko might have, in time, tried to protect as an elder sister was supposed to. He had robbed her of that future, and he was trying to rob her of another where she might end up _alive._

His footsteps made no sound, but sensory abilities were a god-send, and Reiko thanked those lucky stars – _not the ones which had resulted in her Uchiha incarnation, obviously._ Her blade was ready, unsheathed, and not betraying her position. Heart thudding hard in her chest, _because she was going to die that night and she wasn’t skilled enough to stop it,_ she waited and waited until he came into view, red eyes spinning.

Like a viper, she struck, metal clashing on metal as his bloodstained blade met her own. “You bastard,” she snarled, knowing the blood of her sister, of her mother, dripped from that blade.

“You will be an excellent test of my strength,” Itachi said monotonously, like he was still trying to convince himself that was what it was.

Reiko smirked. “Come now, Itachi- _chan_ ,” she hissed, remembering the saying her past life’s mother had once said to her. _Sticks and stones might break your bones, but words will never hurt you._ It wasn’t quite the truth, or so she had learned. Words, sometimes, were such wonderful weapons. _And she knew some of Uchiha Itachi’s secrets._ “You’re just a dog following orders, too thick to think of a solution for yourself – that’s the genius that Uchiha Itachi is,” she purred, relishing in that marvellously blank expression of his as they crossed blades. _She might make it a minute longer if she was lucky._ “A murderer of innocents… tell me, do you think my two month old sister was behind the idiotic plot to overthrow Konoha?” Sharingan spinning, she ducked the next strike. “I can’t help but wonder how you justify everything to yourself… how you blindly think yourself as having _pacifistic_ wishes,” she hissed, a smile curling at her lips at the slight widening of his eyes. It was a vicious thing, full of teeth. “Nothing will ever change the fact that you’re a murderer, and that death is far too good for you. Yet there you are, planning to have Sasuke-chan kill you in the end… Really, you’re such a coward,” she breathed, sharingan clocking the move, but it was far too swift for her to dodge or parry.

Pain exploded across her face, blackness swallowing her whole as she blade sliced through her eyes and the bridge of her nose. _Preventing anyone from taking her mangekyou for themselves._ Her teeth were still bared in a mockery of a grin, even as the blade slammed through her chest, leaving her with the mildest regrets of not using her Susanoo nor her mangekyou abilities to spice the fight up. _But then ROOT would probably help out to minimise the commotion and steal her eyes in the midst of it all._

“Pathetic,” she choked out, even as he left then, leaving her on the floor, blood gushing out with every last thud of her dying heart. Dimly, she hoped he remembered her words until Sasuke came along with his whole angsty avenger show and killed him. She hoped they weighed down on him. Reiko knew it was a spiteful wish of hers, for him to live in agony over what he had done.

Then again Uchiha Reiko never claimed _not_ to be a spiteful bitch.

Needless to say, she soon felt the icy clutches of death come to claim her again, and she pondered over her fate.

Only to wake up in the same clothes sporting a rip where Itachi’s blade had sunk into her heart, alone, eyeless, with the sound of the ocean echoing in her ears. An ocean she had been nowhere near when she died in her house within the Uchiha Compound. And for an uncountable number of times in her many lives, she didn’t have the first idea of what was happening. Only that she didn’t appear to be as dead as she thought she ought to be.

Though to be completely honest, it wasn’t the first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK...
> 
> Just gonna get this off my chest now - please don't ask 'why' I blinded her, or say that there doesn't seem to be a point to it. Her blindness is crucial to the storyline, and also something of a challenge for me to write about - given Reiko is lacking one of her senses. And yes, there's also a language barrier at first, because the common tongue there isn't English, nor is it Japanese, and Reiko doesn't get to magically have an entire language hardwired into her brain, because I feel as though it would take away from the story somewhat. 
> 
> Glorfindel's soulmark is written in the blurb, and it should be fairly obvious what it is - the pattern of Reiko's Eternal Mangekyou - and guess what Reiko is now missing... That's right! The proof that she's Glorfindel's soulmate... and that is a big roadblock in Reiko's path, not that she quite knows it yet. Given her goal is now to have a quiet life with her soulmate (hopefully) it's a trial she'll need to overcome. I took her eyes partially because I also wanted to ensure there was no insta-love, or that their relationship is built off as two people who realise immediately that they're fated to be together. More so, considering Reiko originally came from a place where soulmates were naught but fiction. I wanted to explore that aspect of the soulmate trope - where we have one partner who believes in fated soulmates, and the other who doesn't quite believe it/is mildly concerned by the entire thing, but is willing to try.


	2. Of Chakra Sensors, Blindness, and a Meeting of Chance

She didn’t have the slightest idea of what was going on.

Much like the last time she had been _displaced_ there was no helpful god or goddess there to explain everything or give her many options. Instead she was just thrown somewhere without the first clue of what was happening nor why. Though Reiko was fairly sure there was some higher power up there who was getting off on her suffering. First she had been punted into the body of a baby, only to be stabbed and blinded by her _wonderful_ cousin. Never before had she regretted not shoving the pillow down over Itachi’s head while he was sleeping peacefully. He would never have seen it coming. Reiko laughed, the demented way only an Uchiha on the end of their tether could. _Because it was bullshit._ She was supposed to be dead – supposed to be a corpse in the Uchiha Compound which was nowhere near the ocean.

Her laughter died away ever so slowly, turning into heart wracking sobs _because what in the actual fuck was going on?_ Evidently her tear ducts were miraculously undamaged, and her cheeks were wet by the time her sobs turned into sniffles. Her hands shook as she lifted them to her face, fingers hesitantly feeling out her face. It was the same as what it had been when she was Uchiha Reiko – she had washed her face and touched the skin there enough times to know it was the same – aside from the glaring, yet oddly smooth scar line she could feel slicing through the bridge of her nose and on either side of her closed eyelids. _Like it was an old scar rather than a recent one._

Itachi had sliced through them while her eyes were open, fast enough that closing her eyelids on reflex had been done after her vision was forever stolen from her. But there were no sliced eyeballs in her skull. Instead, they were empty, proving there had been some sort of interference between her death and her apparent _new_ life. _In her old body, with all the scars from her death still intact._ “You could have at least given me my fucking sight,” she muttered to no one in particular – because she was alone on the beach— _or was she?_

She couldn’t see a damned thing – down one of her five senses. Her eyes were gone. The eyes she had been so prideful over, the same eyes the clan had preened about. _Her elder brother’s eyes, she should say._ The last piece of him she had left after she had fucked up on _that_ mission when she was young, stupid, and naive. Well, when her body was young, that was, and when there was still just a little glimmer of those rosy lenses with which she had viewed the world through. _Innocence was such a lovely little thing._ Reiko had lost it twice, because coming into _that_ world from a place with relatively little violence directed her way… Reiko shook her head then, pulling herself out of those thoughts.

“Hello?” she called, hands on the ground, and Reiko blinked at the feeling of grains shifting beneath her fingertips. Gingerly, she pulled a handful up, letting it trickle through her fingers then. She couldn’t see it running down, through the wind blew the fine little grains over her skin. It was real sand, and the sound of a gull squawking above only further proved that it couldn’t be any genjutsu, nor could she be trapped in one of Danzo’s bases. She had died. She remembered the icy feeling all too well.

But she had yet to master the art of _life after death,_ which was becoming an all too common occurrence. Dimly, she wondered what would happen if she died again, before abruptly deciding that _she did not want to know._ So survival it was. _Adapt or die._ Such was the life she had grown accustomed to. Only now she was a blind Uchiha. _Useless._ The word used by Clan Elders to describe an Uchiha without their sharingan. Her hands curled up into fists, her _Uchiha_ pride well and truly quashed. _Ah, the joys of being an Uchiha and the ways it had affected her…_

A bark of laughter escaped her, before she cut it off abruptly. _Because that sound blocked any others._ She was already down one sense, and she didn’t need to cut off another and get killed because of it. Reality was a bitch, and it was sinking in fast – the truth of her situation.

She was alone. On a beach. Blind. In a place she didn’t know. With only the supplies which had been on her when she had died. Reiko let out a slow, long breath. Part of her was infinitely grateful that she had a fully stocked pouch on her, what with her wish to combat Itachi in full combat dress. _Proof she hadn’t been caught unawares._ The Uchiha Pride she had cultivated actually had some use, or so it seemed. She patted at her clothes, stiff with dried blood, biting down on her lip when she felt the tear in her clothing so very close to her heart. Where her cousin’s blade had sunk in. Where the blade which took her life and delivered her to some fresh hell had pierced her skin.

“Right…” she trailed off, trying to fill the silence – she had swiftly discovered, threat of anyone sneaking up on her or no, she hated that quiet. Even the backdrop of the ocean brushing against the shores could do naught to assuage her worries and fears, and so talking aloud to herself it was. “Civilisation,” she mumbled. “I need to find civilisation.” _But would they be friend or foe?_ Her heart thudded in her chest – because she was blind, and that put her at a major disadvantage. _Could she still even fight properly? Would she be able to run away if things turned south?_

Reiko had never been blind before – in either of her lives before that one, and the darkness, the slowly dawning realisation that she would never get to see the vivid green of grass in full bloom, nor the blissful sunsets, or the beautiful stars she had once gazed at. _Sights which had soothed her mind._ It was funny how she had never really dwelled on how vital her sight had been until she was without it. And Reiko could only mourn, because the only was she would be getting her sight back would be through an eye transplant. _Uchiha, as a rule, did not steal eyes._ No matter what tales others told, Uchiha were not thieves of eyes. It was a golden rule. Reiko doubted she would be able to find some random mug who would happily tear out their eyes and give them over to her.

If there actually were any other form of living beings wherever the hell she had ended up. Truly, Reiko didn’t know what to expect. _How could she when she couldn’t even see?_ For all she knew the sand could be blue, and the ocean could be yellow, and the thought _ached._ “Chakra,” she said, focusing her attention then on the pool of chakra gathered within her. It was a sizeable amount. Her body had been _born_ to be a shinobi, thanks to years upon years of careful marriages and the shinobi lifestyle. She supposed it might as well have been a cheat ability by that point. _But given how she was blind, and she was a moderately decent sensor, it was something she could use to give her an edge._

Never before had she wished she’d brushed up on her sensory skills. It wasn’t like one could predict blindness, and the fact that she would live on after the loss of her sight. In the shinobi world, blindness was often synonymous with death. Especially for an Uchiha. _It was funny how the last name she hated had impacted her so very much._

She pulled at her well of chakra, sending it out in a thin wave, letting it bounce off the objects around her and return. With that she had the general shape of objects and obstacles in her path. Behind her stretched out with no interferences, it being the sea at her back, while a forest loomed before her – if she was getting the correct images, blurred and distorted as they were. Vaguely, she recalled there was meant to be a way to make the image clearer, but she hadn’t bothered to finetune her sensing. Anyone with chakra would light up like a glowstick on that internal radar of hers, but objects and other things without a chakra network were that much harder to detect. Still, Reiko hoped it would aid her.

_Because she was blind. Never to see the stars or the sun ever again._

Reiko didn’t quite know how to process the crushing sense of _loss_ which accompanied that realisation. The only thing she really understood was the sheer depth of her hatred for her cousin. Because it was _his_ fault, his decision to rob her of her life. _And if that hadn’t been enough, then he had taken her sight along with him. Bastard._

But thinking about Itachi wouldn’t do any good for her continued survival – not least because it made her shudder to think about that blade and the way she had ben murdered in the safety of her own home. Just like her sight, she could hardly brush off the memory of the last sight she had ever seen. Had she been in her first life, it would have been described as a scene from a horror movie. _And now she was forever trapped in the dark, and that tiny, childish part of her which remembered tales about all the monsters which lurked in that darkness could be heard sobbing within the eaves of her mind._

Her hands curled into fists, and she stood then, almost staggering as sand shifted beneath her feet. She felt off balance, uncertain of where to go until she sent out another little wave of chakra. It was slightly less than last time – if only because she realised how much of her chakra supplies she would burn through _just to gain some cheap imitation of sight._ Reiko could only pray that she didn’t encounter anyone unfriendly. Not until her chakra stores grew, and she learnt how to defend herself even without sight. _Until she finetuned her sensory abilities and figured out what the fuck had become of her life._

“And onwards we go,” she mumbled, hands out blindly before her as she began walking into the forest. _It wasn’t like she could venture out onto the sea._ She hadn’t even retested her abilities after her latest death. Her chakra was still present, and she was fairly sure she had a good grasp of it, but beyond that… like everything else about her situation, it was a big, fat unknown.

Everything _felt_ different – the air itself, though Reiko knew she could blame the salty taste on the sea now even further behind her. _She was making progress!_ Not as much as she would if she wasn’t trapped in darkness, and if some sadistic higher power had decided to give her a nice new body… but reality, as always, was a complete and utter bitch. The only cheat she might have to escape her blindness was an eye transplant. _But finding a willing donor…_ A bark of laughter escaped her again, and she stumbled over a tree root, only years of shinobi reflexes saving her from a painful collision with tree or ground. Years upon years of training to be a glorified murderer definitely had some benefits. She laughed, the choked, hysterical sound making the air around her feel slightly less oppressive.

Ah, how she wished she could just wake up at home in the Uchiha Compound and realise everything had just been a dream. But it was no dream – the memories too vivid, too in line with what she knew was to come, the pain and panic all too real. _And back in her first life there were people envisioning waking up in the Naruto world with all the tools to ‘save everyone and repair the plot’._ As if they would enjoy being in her shoes. “Ah, what depths have I fallen to?” she muttered, musing over imagining some of those she had disliked in her first life being in her shoes. _Though she could only really remember the one she had hated the most, the others just being nameless blurs by that point in time_. It was oddly cathartic, though it did _fuck all_ to help her survive. “Civilisation,” she muttered bitterly, saving herself from another almost-fall before she even lost her balance that time. _More progress!_ Though it hardly helped to lighten the dark mood which had overcome her. “Where art thou, civilisation?” A rock skittered through the underbrush, disturbed by her bitter steps to who-knew-where.

She wanted a map. She wanted her eyes back. She wanted to see. But survival took precedence over fantastical whims, so she trudged onwards. She walked and walked, over grassy hills, and through densely packed wood. Stumbling every tenth – and then twentieth _(Progress!)_ step had soured her mood. Stomach growling, she stopped only to reach into her pouch strapped to her back. Medics were thankfully allowed, and generally preferred, the larger packs, meaning that Reiko had more supplies than the average shinobi would in her situation. Her fingers, after much blind fumbling, closed around one of the many food pills packed there, and she shoved it into her mouth, uncaring of its taste as she paused there to rest.

The air was growing cooler, and Reiko took that to mean that evening was well on its way. _Or maybe it had passed and she was walking in the night?_ She hardly knew the climate of the place she had been thrown to by some sadistic git who was no doubt laughing at her from somewhere. _Probably with a nice bowl of popcorn with which to enjoy her suffering._ Chewing viciously on the last of the pill still in her mouth, she swallowed, washing it down with a sip of water—

Only to choke on it as a hand came down on her shoulder, a voice sounding _far too close_. But more importantly than that, she didn’t understand a single word, but she barely had time to ponder on how the person had snuck up on her – _she had briefly stopped with her sensory ping radar which probably explained it partially._ True to her abysmal luck, she leapt to her feet, darting backwards to trip over a neatly positioned tree root and crack her head back on the, fortunately, soft grass. Though it didn’t make it hurt any the less. “Ow,” she muttered, sitting back up soon after. “Don’t you know it’s not polite to sneak up on a girl?” she hissed, noting something even more alarming as her chakra rippled out once more.

Her surprise attacker, not that he was doing much attacking, had _no_ chakra network. _How was that possible?_ A clan trait? Some terrifying new bloodline limit? Weird sounds, oddly musical in nature, came again, and it took Reiko a few moments to realise he was speaking to her. _In a completely different language._

There were no other languages in the Elemental Nations. Different dialects, yes, but no different languages. _But maybe a clan had invented their own? Which sounded nothing like the language of the Elemental Nations which a created one likely would’ve, given the lack of other sources to base it off of…_ Reiko ignored the trickle of what felt like ice down her back, mind pushing away the feeling of icy cold hands reaching for her throat. _Where in the actual hell was she?_

A hand reached for her own, and Reiko could only numbly accept that the strange possible threat was helping her sit up, while speaking in a voice, in a tone, which sounded _different_ to the one he had originally spoke in.

“Sorry,” Reiko mumbled, silently downgrading the possible threat to likely non-threat status as she found herself assisted to her feet. “But can you speak my language?” she asked, as loud as she was comfortable doing. _The tongue of the Elemental Nations didn’t really have a proper name – it was just the language that they used, so that was what they called it._

The lack of an answer in her tongue gave her all the information she needed to know.

Not only had some _fucking sadistic bastard who she would figure out how to punch eventually_ dumped her in a world without her sight, rather she had been thrown into a place where no one would ever understand a lick of what she was speaking. The basic hand gestures couldn’t even be used for communication, what with the fact she was completely and utterly blind. Fear curled in her gut, even as there was a tug on her hand, the person continuing to speak in that second less musical way as Reiko was dragged off somewhere.

Her only comfort was that she had a bag stacked full of weapons, should the likely non-threat be the bait to lure in helpless travellers for the slaughter. Though, really, she prayed that wouldn’t be the case. But she was swiftly losing faith in her prayers. Mostly because they generally went wholly, inexplicably, and utterly unheard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel I should clarify at this point - I don't hate Itachi - Reiko doesn't understand his reasoning fully, feared him originally because she knew his future and her own should he go through with the plan, and hates him because he's the cause of her death and responsible for punting her into a new, strange place, blind and alone. She's terrified and confused, and lays the blame at her killer's feet.
> 
> Let's be honest, Itachi was barely a teenager when he killed his family, and he grew up in a village which encouraged killing 'to protect Konoha'. Reiko comes from 'our' world, and is thus horrified and bitter about being made to follow those sorts of rules. There'll be differences of opinion and their thought processes. Itachi was mixed up in the situation and couldn't see a good enough way out beyond killing everyone (he's ridiculously young, meaning his plans aren't necessarily the greatest, nor can he think of all possible solutions, plus it's practically ingrained in him to obey orders of his superiors). Reiko, meanwhile, has an outsider's perspective on the matter, and has an adult's mind, meaning she's much older than Itachi and can think of other ways out due to her life experiences. It's probably not fair of Reiko to think that Itachi could have done better, given he was stuck between a rock and a hard place and he was young despite his so-called genius. There are things learnt only by growing up, and through experience.


	3. The End is Where We Begin

There was nothing quite like being a foreigner in a land in which nobody spoke one’s own language. Or, at least, that was the impression Uchiha Reiko received as she found herself guided to another place to sit down. _Why_ she had been guided there was anyone’s guess, but Reiko enjoyed entertaining the idea that in a violent world such as the one she had been reincarnated into originally, there were a few nice folk. Not that she relinquished the iron grip she had on her pack of weapons as she sat down wherever _there_ was.

She was a shinobi, no matter how much she hated the mercenary title, and shinobi had paranoia drilled into their very bones. Well, if they were Uchiha that was. She didn’t know whether it was a fact across the board or whether Uchiha did things differently to the rest of the world. _Reiko would personally bet on the latter._

Evidently, the people she had ended up with were not blind unlike herself – Reiko struggled not to snort at the thought – and she found her hand being held when she was being spoken to in that language she couldn’t understand for the life of her. _How was one meant to learn a language from scratch?_ Her free hand clenched. _It wasn’t enough to be blind. Oh no, she just had to be incapable of holding a conversation with anyone too._

Spite, she was fairly certain, was going to be an excellent motivator for her in the coming _however many days or weeks_ it took for her to find her way back to some semblance of home. Shivers rolled down her spine, and she found herself feeling the ground around her. Touch was something which, unlike her sight, would be much harder for her to lose. That was grass she was undoubtedly sitting on, and dimly, Reiko tried to remember the shade of the grass in her little garden back home. _Her corpse was probably rotting there._ Fingers interwove with the grass as she remembered those red eyes, black pinwheels spinning vividly in their depths. Crimson was so very vivid in her memories, spinning, pulling her into their depths. _She doubted Konoha would bury her according to Uchiha Traditions._ Those had been some of the favourite things about her clan – the funeral traditions. It had been an oddly morbid thing to focus on, but then Reiko supposed the word _morbid_ probably described her life fairly accurately. She had lived after death once, and she now seemed to be doing the exact same thing once more.

_Even if she could no longer understand a bloody thing for the life of her._

Wisely, she reigned in the chuckles which wanted to spill from her lips – she hardly wanted her new companions of sorts to think her mad. Though by that point she was probably somewhat mad. One didn’t live as an Uchiha in a world of blood and death without becoming scarred by it. But without her sharingan it was hard to call herself an Uchiha. To the Uchiha, their eyes were everything, and it crushed her to realise that she had been influenced by that. She had lost her eyes. She had lost everything Uchiha about herself in a matter of minutes. Only the fact that she was wearing the Uchiha emblem would identify her as such, and she often forewent the signature red and white fan when—

Her fingers dug into the dirt, hairs on the back of her neck standing up on end as she realised she was dressed up in full battle gear, which, by clan mandate, had a wonderfully large, red and white bullseye marking set upon it for all to see. _What if these weird people with no chakra were a clan and they knew of the Uchiha?_ Her throat felt terribly dry, mind racing to answer the question as to why the strange people— _clan?—_ had brought her to the campfire crackling somewhere close by. _Were they trying to get her to let her guard down? Or were they after her bloodline?_

The feeling of fabric brushing over her skin made her jump, and it was only the fact someone’s hand was still holding her own that she didn’t try and stab the person who had come over so very stealthily. The cloth was terribly silky on her skin, and horribly warm too, and she looked around frantically. _Well, she would have looked if she could actually see._ As it was, her head just twisted from side to side in a short timeframe.

The same voice as the one who had brought her there – _a blind Uchiha, easy pickings_ – rang out then, fingers curling around her own, a thumb rubbing at the back of her hand then in what Reiko realised to be a soothing gesture. _About five minutes after beginning her little freak out._ Why was he trying to ease her worries? _Well, if that was what he was doing._ He might have been trying to get her to let down her guard—

Reiko resisted the urge to scream at the sky, feeling oddly proud of herself as she simply grunted like the Uchiha she was and flopped back against the tree. _Because what in the actual fuck could she do against this strange clan if they did indeed want her bloodline?_ The answer to that was: _Nothing!_ She doubted she’d be able to throw a punch there, what with her spatial awareness difficulties and her abysmal balance at that moment in time. _She had tripped over a motherfucking tree root – something she hadn’t done since she was five and still in the academy._ Ah, those were the blissful days when she had only needed to worry about being murdered by her cousin. Mentally, she laughed. _To think there would be a time in her life that all she wanted to worry about was being murdered for being an Uchiha._

Truly, she wanted nothing more than to throw her head back and laugh, but she was amidst a group of potential hostiles, and the last thing she wanted to do was to set them off. _Or maybe accidentally convince them that the Uchiha bloodline wasn’t worth the madness they succumbed to, if they were bloodline thieves of some description._ She didn’t want to die again. Dying, she could confirm, hurt, and she had died much too recently. She didn’t particularly want a repeat until, perhaps, she reached a nice old age and croaked from natural causes for once. Maybe once she had found her soulmate and did whatever it was that soulmates did beyond getting married and having children. Reiko still wasn’t wholly sold on the idea of soulmates. _Nor did she know where in the bloody hell hers was._ Most people met them while they were relatively young. _Yet another thing the clan had given her grief over._

She missed the clan still. Less because they were nice people, and more because she would take the evil she knew over the evil and unknown that she didn’t. Being alone – or at least feeling that way since she could understand fuck all – was scary. Especially when blind, incapable of fighting, and who knew where.

Though maybe she would find some clues either once she reached a large enough town, or somehow, miraculously learnt the language. _People could do that, couldn’t they?_ Reiko swallowed at the thought, wishing she could bash her head against something without looking like a complete loon. Alas, there wasn’t.

All she could do was sit there, wait for some fate to befall her, and eat the food – some sort of bread – given to her by the people there. Dimly, she wondered if it was poisoned as she ate it, body too eager to get something other than a food pill inside it. She snorted around her food as the realisation of how the shinobi world had affected her so came to light. Indeed, she doubted there was a more paranoid person than she. Living in a world of ROOT agents along with other murderous folk had shaped her more than she ever liked to admit. _Ah. The joys of trauma and PTSD._ Two of the many benefits of being a shinobi.

Tiredness assailed her then, and she mulled over it being a sedative slipped in her food, or whether, perhaps, she was just too tired after the events of that day. Her apparent morning there had started with her being stabbed to wake up there. Such a wonderful thing to wake after. _Not._ She placed a hand over her mouth, concealing her yawn as she curled up between the thick roots of the tree. It was oddly comfy there, considering there was no fluffy mattress in sight. _Ha, ‘in sight’!_ Reiko snickered, pulling the material of the cloak she wore further around herself, dimly marvelling at the soft sensation beneath her fingertips.

_Who knew camping outdoors could be so comfortable?_ Reiko sighed softly, wondering how exactly she was meant to go to sleep after the madness of her newest reality. It wasn’t like she could close her eyes and curl up there. She had no more eyes to close, and the blackness she had once greeted only in sleep was now all that she saw. It was all encompassing, and the knowledge that when morning rolled around, there would be no light for her had her stomach twisting. She had never before appreciated sight as much as she did in that instant, but hers was gone – and, if she was being realistic, unlikely to ever come back.

She hardly knew what would happen if she put eyes unused to functioning with chakra inside her eye sockets. She was in the unknown. _Yet again._ Her lips curled up, nervousness gnawing at her gut at the big mystery which was her current situation. _She had lived through the real ‘Naruto’ world where everyone tried to murder each other six ways from Sunday. Surely she could do it again?_

But this time she was _blind,_ a snide voice whispered in the back of her head, self-doubt creeping in like cloud cover before the rain. _She could certainly try though?_ Her hands trembled at the thought. It was like her first mission jitters all over again. _And that had gone sideways from the offset – proof she had a cursed luck._ Well, further proof, if the case of her death and subsequent rebirth wasn’t enough to prove she was an exceedingly unlucky individual.

Thoughts ticked over, the dull hum of conversations in a language she couldn’t understand filling her ears alongside the crackling pop of burning branches as the fire burnt merrily some distance away from the little spot she was curled up within. The stranger who had brought her there still lingered far too close for comfort. Though she was a shinobi by that point, and so their standards of too close were somewhat skewed given they were all paranoid bastards, herself included. _Ah, why hadn’t she smothered her baby cousin in his sleep? Or maybe snapped his neck while he was still a baby…? She could have pushed him down the stairs while on one of their ‘play dates’ had she been stuck in less of a stupor at that stage of her life._ Truly, it had taken her a number of years for reality to smash through the rose-tinted glass she had tried to view the world through.

Innocence and naivety were such wonderful things. Though neither could remain if one wanted to survive whatever shitshow the universe was throwing her way. She doubted even a scrap of them remained. Indeed, if there had been any vestiges left by the time she had turned sixteen in that terrible world of shinobi and other merchants of death, then they had vanished the second that blade pierced through her chest.

The fact she was recalling all the missed opportunities to commit murder only proved how far she had fallen from the girl who had originally died at the end of life number one. _Did her new life count as number three? Even if she was still in the body of Uchiha Reiko?_ Though there were no guarantees her body was the same. Her hair could have been pink now for all she knew.

She would never be able to look in a mirror and check. The thought crushed her, even though she hadn’t actually spent much time in front of one as Uchiha Reiko. She had been more concerned with survival than looking pretty. But she had the Uchiha genes, and they often ended up making them all look slightly prettier than the rest of the rabble. Her face had felt the same, though part of her still wondered if there were different, more subtle changes. Changes she would have only been able to confirm with her own two eyes.

_Thank you, cousin dearest, for taking them!_

A huff of air escaped her then, body relaxing, and Reiko realised just how tense she had been as the bliss which was sleep washed over her then. She only hoped she would wake up once again in the morning rather than being murdered in her sleep. Or at least wake up in the same place once more, what with her alarming tendency to do the complete opposite.


	4. Waking, Walking, Worrying, and Wandering

Waking up wasn’t the same as before, when she could crack open her eyelids and greet the morning sun. Reiko woke up to darkness, despite the warmth of the sunlight she could feel on her in patches. She could almost picture the image of her situation, sunlight shining down through the leaves of a tree canopy above her. It was a sight she was familiar with, thanks to her many missions spent camping out underneath the stars, meaning it was one she could just about picture, fuzzy as her memories of colour and shape were becoming. The thought was a scary one, if she were completely honest – that she might forget colour, despite the clear memories she had of it. _She would never be able to see the difference between shades of colour, never be able to know whether the sky was a pale blue or a clearer dark blue unless someone described it to her in detail._ As it stood, no one could really speak with her—

Her chakra pulsed out then in a ripple, brows drawing together as she registered a lack of anything really reacting to her sensory poke. _Because that was basically what it was, and without her teammates there to tell her ‘that’s not what it’s called Reiko!’ she felt free to call everything that which she wished to._ She had died and been reborn in some weirder way than before. Something she understood fuck all about, and she was slowly getting to the point where she gave zero fucks about anything. _Bar her own embarrassment, involving, yet not excusive to, tripping over tree roots._ “Did those people _leave?”_ she asked aloud, sitting up, blinking as she felt the blanket slip off her. _She was still wearing that cloak given to her, or so it seemed._ But really… _Had they left her there?_

The answer to that was seemingly _yes._ Though there were eleven sticks lined up to one another along with three which were put together to form an arrow. That still didn’t detract from the fact that some random group of hillbillies had left a blind person alone in the middle of some woods. “Who the fuck does that?” she hissed. “Though at least they gave me some bloody directions,” she muttered, growing all too content with the sound of her own voice. _The only thing she could understand in whatever weird place she had wound up in._ “I wish I could see,” she mumbled bitterly, loathing of her own cousin who just had to blind her before spearing her through the chest. She hated Uchiha Itachi. The depth of her brewing hatred surprised her – she hadn’t thought it possible to hate another as much as she did.

Wind blew, hair flying out behind her, and she presumed it came from the sea, what with how there was a lingering taste of salt on the breeze. She played with the eleven sticks, wondering what they were meant to represent. Communication had well and truly proved to be beyond her and the group of however many people there actually had been. _She still didn’t get how someone could leave a blind person alone, but who knew – maybe they were just mean?_ Although to be fair, she was probably a good ways into the forest, and for all they knew she had some private business there. They had no reason to be nice to her. Truly, she should have known that by then. Shinobi weren’t nice. They didn’t take any sympathy on helpless lost civilians – she certainly hadn’t, so maybe this was some form of _karma?_ Though if that were the case, then where was her good luck and life which had eluded her after two deaths?

Reiko hoped it would be good. _Wait, fuck that – she would make it good, because no higher power had ever listened to her pleas._ She didn’t think a nice quiet life was too much to ask for, although she liked to think that maybe, just maybe, she would have a nice, relaxing rest of her life was waiting for her when she settled down with her soulmate. She was glad to still feel the hum of chakra around her active soulmark. _If only because it meant that her fated other half wasn’t dead yet._ Dimly, she mused on what it would be like to meet them. She was a shinobi – a realist though – so she was hardly expecting some sappy poetry and immediate confessions of love from the both of them. She wondered what it would be like to fall in love. The memories, if there were any, in lifetime number one, were fuzzy and she couldn’t really remember them all that well. _The blind panic and worries about Itachi killing her along with her desperately trying to recall the basis of the Naruto plot had occupied most of her mind and attention._

“Might as well get this show on the road,” she muttered, slapping her cheeks, eager to feel something in that dark all-encompassing blackness. Patting her way through her bag, she drew out a kunai, scoring a line in the dirt in the direction she presumed the ones who had taken care of her last night were indicating for her to head. _She supposed she ought to be grateful for even that small show of kindness._ It was more than a shinobi would have given her in fact, a shinobi would have been far more likely to slit her throat or kidnap her for bloodline theft purposes. Reiko shivered at the thought. Every Uchiha was warned of everything about that matter. _How they were to kill themselves before anything could happen…_

She was infinitely glad that group hadn’t been after her bloodline – if they indeed knew anything about the Uchiha Clan, what with them being unable to understand her language. A thought occurred to her then. _She had gone to a different world the last time she had died._ She had been able to confirm that with her own two eyes. She couldn’t really do so yet again. Still, the thought unnerved her. _Because what if that meant nobody could understand her?_ Shivering she adjusted the sinfully warm cloak around her shoulders, packing away the blanket which she had been wrapped up in as best as she could. She didn’t want to waste anything given to her.

Chakra rippled out, and she tried to use it to see the arrow and the score in the ground, kunai at the ready to mark her passage. Really, she hardly cared if it made her easier to track. All she cared about was perhaps finding a road and then finding civilisation. Swallowing thickly, having eaten one of her food pills, she readied herself to set off and out into the scary dark world. _She didn’t know if it was the same one she had died in – didn’t know if her cousin was roaming the lands, ready and waiting to kill her where she stood…_

“Fuck,” Reiko muttered, kicking at the dirt gently – not wanting to trip herself up with a kunai in hand. _What with her newfound clumsiness._ She doubted things would end very well, and she did _not_ want to injure herself and waste chakra. Not when she needed it to gain a mockery of sight. She walked then, fear coiling within like a snake ready to strike. _She needed to retrain herself, and she knew the instincts ingrained into her would demand that she at least be able to defend herself before she reached civilisation._ Who knew when things would turn hostile? Shinobi were always meant to be prepared, and Reiko knew she was only really incredibly prepared supplies wise. Everything else was a flaming hot mess which had been fucked over several times thanks to her _losing her damned eyes._ How did people deal with sudden losses of sight? Shinobi weren’t too great with healthy coping mechanisms for any form of loss, and Reiko liked to think herself better than most shinobi. _If only because she was originally from a world which didn’t glorify and romanticise all forms of torture and murder._ Although she was probably a big fat hypocrite by that point in time.

She gave zero fucks about that anymore. She just wanted to be back in a nice warm bed with her nice warm socks on her feet and two unmarred eyes in their respective sockets. Ah, that would be the life. Reiko snorted. It was almost scary how very low her standards had become for happiness and general living. Chakra pinged off trees and bushes, and Reiko tried adjusting the wavelength her chakra went out on. _Nothing ventured, nothing gained,_ and she knew she needed to finetune her sensing – needed to get it so that the rope-like wave of chakra she sent outwards from all directions became nothing more than a thin thread. The hows and whens she was going to reach that level were still very much up in the air. All she knew was that something had to change as she walked onwards, scoring little arrows into the trees as she made her way passed them in a relatively straight line.

Time passed ever so slowly, and Reiko was thankful for the odd sort of body clock she still seemed to have, and how nicely it had synchronised with her new location. The sun was high and heavy down on her back when she stopped for lunch. _And munched on both the food pill and some leftovers from the night previous which had been snuck into her bag._ All in all, it rather alarmed her that the hillbillies from before had managed to be so very stealthy so as to not disturb her when they had done that, though admittedly they had tucked her in like a child too and she hadn’t stirred. Reiko wished she had a nicer name to call them, but maybe she was a bit spiteful that they had left her alone in the middle of nowhere? If there was one thing she had far too much of as of late, it was spite and anger. _Then again, being murdered by one’s cousin could do that to someone,_ or so Reiko mused, humming in dark amusement at the thought.

Spite being her main motivator, she paused for a bit in the relatively flat space she had found to eat her food. Her hand wrapped around the hilt of the blade at her side, ready to draw it before she thought better. _Better to get her hand-to-hand combat, and thus her own habit of tripping over everything, dealt with before she moved onto anything involving a blade._ Making a twig arrow of her own to remind her of which direction to travel in, she readied herself. _For lots of painful mistakes that was._ She started off with a basic Uchiha Kata, _because clan pride was always there to bite her in the foot no matter how she protested it so._ Reiko felt as though she were five years old once more as she struggled to finish it.

Her muscles were aching by the end of it, ankles creaking from the strain of falling over or almost doing as such, and Reiko opted to rest for the rest of the day. It was terribly boring to simply wait there, and Reiko mulled over what to do for entertainment. In the end, as most shinobi opted to, training became her entertainment, chakra pulsing in and out as she tried to make improvements upon her sensory abilities. _They were something vital which couldn’t be neglected in favour of other things._ She would be far more liable to danger without her sensory _ping_ radar activated. Her chest throbbed at the thought of that. _Of how if her teammates were there – if she were still alive – would have told her the correct terms for that._ But her teammates weren’t there, and Reiko was fairly sure she had been written off as dead. For all she knew there was a perfect replica of her corpse left in the Uchiha Compound.

Reiko shivered at the thought. _She had been doing that far too much as of late._ But imagining her own corpse, especially one which looked identical to that which she assumed she looked like, was a very eerie thing to imagine. She didn’t want to dwell on her death, if only because it made that pit of dark emotions swell, and she didn’t need any of them clouding her vision. Reiko snorted at that. _As if she had any vision left to cloud._

Focusing her attention back on her training, she could only really _watch_ the results of her sensory radar, and how they slowly built an image of the life around her. It was a black world, made of only varying shades of bluish silver. _The colour of her chakra._ It was an almost monochrome world. One which wasn’t impeded by the darkening sky. Though she would have preferred a bright world of colour and beauty to that which she currently had. Tears rolled down from empty eye sockets, and Reiko rubbed at them as she mulled on what the moon looked like. Those were things she would never to be able to determine with her chakra radar. She would only ever be able to see trees and leaves, and only when they were within the slowly expanding radius which her chakra could manage to reach.

She couldn’t afford to sense too far and in too much detail. Already her head was throbbing from the practice and testing of what her sensory radar was truly capable of. Reiko sipped at her water, gingerly weighing her flask as she mulled on the need to find a river. She was fortunate to have water purification tablets, but there was a limited amount of them, meaning if she could start a fire to boil water, she would prefer that method. _There were supplies sealed in scrolls in her pack._ Well, so long as nothing had been taken in return for the odd bread she had been given. She didn’t think there had, but then again, she had been more focused on setting off than checking she still had all her supplies. _An amateur mistake._

So when her chakra levels became low enough to promote growth of her chakra core and coils, but not enough to cause chakra exhaustion, she opted to catalogue her supplies. _Enough food pills to last her a month, two water canteens, twenty kunai on hand, thirty shuriken, a full first aid pack, five full sealing scrolls, and that was it._ Nothing missing, although she couldn’t quite remember what was in those five sealing scrolls. She had never really needed to use those supplies when she had packed them a long time ago. Reiko felt terribly glad for her over preparedness. Paranoia, some would call it. But in a world of sealing scrolls and the like, it was better to have something and not need it, than to need it and not have it. _She had a terrible feeling she would need quite a lot of those somethings in days to come._

Reiko went to sleep, wishing she might wake back up somewhere familiar _with_ her sight intact. That was nothing more than a wishful dream, and she woke to that horribly all too familiar blackness with the sun shining down upon her, as if to mock her.

She woke up, practiced her chakra sensing while walking, stopped for lunch and katas, walked as far as her body would let her, and then settled down for dinner. It was an oddly repetitive pattern, and Reiko grew more and more comfortable with her situation – in regards to the fighting that was. She was glad she could do that. Her sensing crawled forwards, improving at an almost painfully slow pace. Reiko half the time wanted to throw something in frustration, and all too often she gave into the urge. It was embarrassing to think about in hindsight, but she had a temper, and the frustrations of everything she could no longer do as easily thanks to being _blind_ were so very fragile and prone to making her blow up. _Not literally, though she often had the urge to spew fire in anger, as Uchiha were wont to do._ But Reiko was in a forest, and she didn’t particularly want to burn herself to a crisp by starting a fire she couldn’t get away from. That would be an embarrassing and painful way to go. Not to mention she didn’t particularly want to die again. She, in her own humble opinion, had died far too much, and she wasn’t too eager to repeat the process. So she ate, slept, trained, walked, and kept her temper in check.

It took her eleven days to reach the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're asking why they left her, elves are well known to not involve themselves in affairs beyond their own realm and kind - they were a travelling party, and they came across her at night and so decided to welcome her into their camp. If you've read the books, it's basically like what Gildor and his group did with Frodo and the early fellowship before they reached Rivendell.

**Author's Note:**

> SPORADIC UPDATES T_T


End file.
